


Material world

by dendriax



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, M/M, Oblivious, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 03, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 07:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19786444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendriax/pseuds/dendriax
Summary: Against all reason and logic, Billy keeps showing up in Steve's alone-timefantasyhallucination.Post season 3 AU





	Material world

**Author's Note:**

> This is missing some tags to avoid spoilers, which is also to say that this fic contains spoilers for season 3 so ~be warned~
> 
> In which Hopper shot that Russian guy in the head and not just the bulletproof vest...

"You're here a lot," Steve brings up conversationally as he flops onto his bed.

"And?" Billy doesn't even look up from where he's snooping through Steve's supply of hair products, which Steve keeps in his bedroom.

Steve's bedroom, where Steve sleeps, among other things. Steve doesn't have time for whatever bullshit this is. It's been a long day Steve spent trading his youth for minimum wage. And after that was over, Steve had to play chauffeur for the kids (not his children), picking them up from the hospital and dropping them home one by one, because apparently this is his life now.

Like he said, it's been a long day.

"And after a long day, a strapping young man deserves his wholesome alone time," Steve points out, very reasonably.

Billy turns to him then, and noticeably swallows. Steve doesn't watch the movement of his neck at all. "Me being here would be an improvement, fallen king."

And so things kinda escalate from there.

-

The next day at work, Steve wonders "How do you know you're gay?" Possibly out loud.

Robin only gives him this... look, this hugely judgmental look, like she thinks he's dumb or something. Definitely 'or something', Steve's not dumb.

"I mean you in general. The general you. One. How does one know one is gay?" He clarifies. He knows how to English.

The look on Robin's face morphs into something more contemplative.

"I guess it depends on the person," Robin says half an eternity later. "I mean, I'd have to ask other gay people to be sure but I don't think there's a definitive way of knowing."

'Sounds lonely,' Steve doesn't say, because he's not a douchebag. "Good thing I have you to educate me then."

"Yeah, very convenient. Why do you wanna know?" She suddenly sounds annoyed, which also matches her facial expression.

Realizing some unintentional douchebagginees might be showing, Steve recovers with "Don't turn this around on me. I asked you first."

"And I reserve the right to choose whether or not to answer," Robin digs her heels in. Dammit. Steve will remember this for the next time he wants to have a conversation without some sort of mind-altering substance.

Anyway, Robin does relent eventually. And it only takes Steve telling her about how some guy showed up in his ill-advised alone-time hallucination last night, whatever.

~

Okay, so, maybe things haven't been making much sense.

It kinda started with Steve announcing to Robin that "We need to find work, one that doesn't require me to wear a stupid hat," and her asking "'We'?" And him saying "Yeah. I mean you're like, my gay best friend now, right? So we should, y'know, stick together and stuff."

Which led to them going back to Starcourt, only to discover the totally unlikely chance of the mall reopening anytime in this century, which made sense because it had burned down and killed a bunch of people and also, like, yay! The Death of Small-Town America is no more!

What did not make sense was the fact that Steve saw Billy there at the ruins of the mall.

And what still has not made sense is the fact that Steve still sees Billy everywhere.

Steve blames the Russians, really.

~

"I was promised free ice cream for life," Erica says in that annoying way of hers some trying amount of time after Steve brought her to Family Video. "And since you incompetent nerd can't even give me that, this is what I settle for, for now."

"That's a lot of ponies," Billy chimes in, eyeballing the stack of VHS tapes Erica has accumulated. "And she's right, y'know. You are incompetent."

"Oh, shut up, you--" Steve begins.

"Uh, excuse me," Erica cuts him off. "Are you telling the child you have endangered to shut up?"

-

"Why don't you, I don't know, go hang out where porn is made or something?" Steve suggests helpfully as soon as he shuts his bedroom door.

Billy's frown is immediate. "That'd be creepy."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "You have standards?"

"Yes."

"And nowhere in your 'standards' prevents you from getting off on me getting off?" Steve raises another eyebrow for added effect.

"You also get free shows in return," Billy argues, and then takes off his shirt.

"And that should lower the creepiness level?" Steve counters, unswayed by the newly exposed view.

"Says the guy who's about to get off with his 'hallucination'," Billy drawls, now unbuttoning his jeans.

Steve doesn't dignify that with a spoken response, just rolls his eyes as he shimmies out of his own clothes.

In his defense, how else is he supposed to respond to that?

-

It's another night in pony hell when Steve hears "... why he hasn't woken up yet."

"Who hasn't woken up yet?" Steve asks, hoping for an escape.

"Billy, duh? Who else?" Lucas answers with uncalled-for snarkiness.

Somewhere in Steve's brain is telling him maybe he shouldn't press the issue further but-- "Isn't Billy, y'know, dead?"

Roughly two-thirds of the room turn to glare at him.

Steve directs his gaze towards El, who's in the one non-hostile third. "You said Billy collapsed... with the fleshy spider thing... when Hopper and Mrs Byers closed the gate? So like, understandably, I assumed he was dead?"

The replies are kinda overwhelming with all the talking-over-each-other going on.

Here is a list of what Steve manages to make out:  
\- Yes, Billy did collapse with that fleshy spider thing.  
\- No, Billy isn't dead, just hasn't been conscious since.  
\- None of the funerals they've attended as of late was for Billy.  
\- Billy's currently residing at the hospital, where he's been slowly but surely recuperating and such.  
\- Steve's driven the kids to and from the hospital regularly -- to visit Billy, which Steve just now realizes.  
\- The majority of the room think Steve's dumber than previously thought, and Steve was thought to be very dumb to begin with.

"Don't call me dumb," Steve makes a break in. "It's very understandable that I wouldn't have known. He didn't know, either."

The room falls into silence, all ponies forgotten. Yay?

"Who didn't know, either?" It's Max who asks, although without her usual feistiness.

"Uh," Steve utters intelligently.

-

"Let me get this straight. You've been communing with Billy this whole time and not once did it occur to you to mention it to any of us?" The question comes from Dustin, who clearly has spent too much time with Robin and Erica.

"It's what any sane person would've done. They wouldn't've let on that they might be insane," has been Steve's reasoning, which makes perfectly good sense.

"Never mind that. You said Billy's here. As in, he's here with us right now in this room?" Nancy enunciates the last part slowly.

Billy's smirking smugly at Steve from behind all the staring bunch.

"Yeah, he's right behind Will." Steve watches as Will jumps and everyone twists their neck to look, only to turn back with various degrees of skepticism on their faces.

"I call bullshit. How come only you can see him? Even El doesn't see him." Mike flails wildly. "And she has superpowers!"

"Do I look like I'm made of explanations? I just saw him one day and he keeps being visible and following me around like a demented hippie."

A pause.

"Maybe, because the Mind Flayer was still attached to him when the gate was being closed, cutting its brain off also separated Billy's consciousness from his body?" Will contributes.

"So, for him to wake up, we just have to bring his consciousness back into his body?" Lucas piles on.

"Theoretically," Max adds.

-

"Two visitors at a time! Don't you kids remember what happened the last time all of you barged in? People died, that's what happened," a random nurse intercepts them as they try to storm the hospital at half past ten on a Friday night.

"It's fine. They're with me, the chief of police," Hopper explains, gesturing at himself... and the colorful cutting-edge stuff he's sporting?

When that duly doesn't work, Mrs Byers just ups and herds them in.

-

The operation takes El and (immaterial) Billy as well as some maneuvering on Steve's part -- plus a lot of yelling from everyone else -- but mostly it's El who does the psychic heavy lifting.

-

Epilogue:

"You're here again," Steve observes from the edge of his bed.

"You asked if I wanted to come," Billy -- now shirtless and soon-to-be pantsless -- wrongly misinterprets Steve's completely innocent words.

On the radio, someone's singing '♪Who would've thought that a boy like me could come to this?♪' Steve ignores it. "And you said yes, why?"

"I have my body back now," Billy points out, licking his lips. "One that can be touched, and more." And--

Billy can suck it, Steve decides.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not over the Dustin/Suzie duet and the fact that the gate would've been closed sooner if they hadn't taken so much time singing. Anyway, I'm not sure if Billy ingested any of the chemicals but for the sake of this AU let's just pretend the Mind Flayer didn't leave him with any lasting damage, m'kay?
> 
> Also, is it just me or does Steve get progressively dumber with each passing season?
> 
> As always, thank YOU for reading and please consider leaving comments/kudos if you enjoyed the fic. XD

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Long game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716361) by [dendriax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendriax/pseuds/dendriax)




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